Edward Lee - Succubi

“Poet,” Melanie replied. But who were these girls? She’d never met them before—yet they knew all about her. They seemed nice, though. In the city, people never went out of their way to be nice.

They began walking down the street. “What grades are you in?” Melanie inquired.

“I’m in eleventh, like you. Rena’s in ninth. There aren’t many girls our age in Lockwood.”

“What about boys?” Melanie asked.

Both girls laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Come on,” Wendlyn cut in. She took Melanie by the hand and led her into an opening in the trees. Melanie was too startled to object. The darkness cloaked her yet somehow she could see the path’s outline quite well in the starlight. Soon they led her into a cramped, moonlit grove.

“This is our place,” Rena said.

“No one knows about it,” Wendlyn added.

Melanie still didn’t know what was going on. The two girls sat down on a log.

“Sit down. We don’t bite.”

Again, both girls laughed.

Melanie sat down on a log opposite them. “How come you laughed when I asked about guys?”

“There really aren’t any,” Wendlyn said. Rena bent over, digging at something. “Most of the men are old, married, or they just work their jobs. No one our age.”

“Except Zack,” Rena said.

For the third time, both girls, inexplicably, laughed.

“Come on, what’s so funny?”

“Zack’s nineteen. He’s the janitor for the church.”

“He lives there,” Rena added.

What was she digging at?

“He lives at the church?” Melanie questioned. “What about his parents?”

“He doesn’t have any. He’s, like, an orphan or something. Your grandmother sort of adopted him, took him in. She’s done that with a lot of the guys in Lockwood. Likes to help people in need.”

“You’ll meet Zack.” Rena giggled. “You’ll like him. He’s hung like a horse.”

“Rena!” Wendlyn objected.

Melanie blushed slightly. If she knows that, she must’ve… She couldn’t help but put two and two together. She felt odd. She’d only just met these girls, yet for some reason she did not feel too inhibited to ask the next question. “Have you ever done it with him?”

“Bunch of times,” Rena admitted. “We both have. Zack’s our toy.”

Toy? Melanie thought.

Rena had lifted up a big flat rock. There was a hole underneath, and from the hole she had extracted a cigar box. Next, her face glowed orange for a moment—she was lighting a cigarette, or a joint.

Wendlyn passed it over. “Try some. It’s leahroot.”

Melanie’d never heard of it. Leahroot? “What, is it like pot or something?”

“No, it’s an herb. It gives you a good buzz, but it doesn’t make you stupid like pot. My mom grows it behind the store.”

It looked like pot to Melanie, which she’d only done twice, and didn’t like. Pot gave her tunnel vision and made her eat like a pig. But when the smoke wafted over, it smelled nice. It smelled sort of like cinnamon.

She took a light drag. In a moment she felt woozy, relaxed.

“See?” Wendlyn said.

“Have you ever done it?” Rena asked.

“What, this stuff? I’ve never even heard of it.”

“No, I mean have you ever gotten laid?”

“Rena! That’s none of your business,” Wendlyn scolded.

“I say she hasn’t.”

“Rena, shut up!”

“That’s all right,” Melanie said, and it was. She felt good now, and she liked Wendlyn and Rena. “And to answer your question, no, I haven’t.”

“That’s good,” Rena said. “You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause you’re special,” Wendlyn said.

Special? Melanie thought. What did that mean? Their comments were so odd, but just as odd, Melanie didn’t care. “I could have a couple times, but I was afraid. You know, AIDS and herpes and all that.”

“We don’t worry about stuff like that here,” Wendlyn said.

What a crazy thing to say. Were these girls stupid? She must mean they use condoms.

Melanie took another drag. Now she felt really good. The buzz titillated her. What had they called the stuff? A pleasant heat seemed to caress her chest.

“Feel it?” Rena asked.

“Yeah,” Melanie said.

The moon felt cool on her face. She could not account for the beat of thoughts that next filled her mind, nor the feelings. She looked at the two girls sitting across from her. They were looking back, grinning at her in the moonlight.

“I have to go,” Melanie said.

“We know,” Wendlyn replied.

“My mom’ll get pissed if I m late.”

“See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure.” Melanie rushed off. She could not define her feelings. As she wended down the path, she could hear Wendlyn and Rena laughing.

—

Chapter 14

“Dooer, dooer,” croaked the voice.

Wet lips sipped from the cup. The cup looked full of blood.

Shadows hovered. Firelight flickered on the earthen walls and she sensed a great heat.

“Dooer,” she heard, and then distant, soft singing.

Women…singing.

The emblem, same as that upon the cup, seemed huge behind the shadows, as if suspended in the air.

The flurry of hands roved over sweating skin, stroking the tight, distended belly. Hot mouths licked off rivulets of perspiration; she felt milk being sucked from the painfully swollen breasts. Then voracious tongues trailed up her legs, up her thighs to the radiating, wet inlet to her womb.

Her orgasm jolted her, followed by a string of smaller yet longer ones. It felt as though every inch of exposed flesh was either being caressed, licked, kneaded, or sucked. Beyond she noticed other shadows, which seemed to be men. Men, watching before a stoked fire. Forms of other figures seemed to squirm on the dirt floor, naked, coupling legs wrapped around backs, faces buried between legs.

“Dooer, dooer,” she heard again as her own orgasms pulsed down and the contractions began to throb.

“Join us.”

Two hands formed a basket between her legs. Squeals rose, in joy, in awe. The great, gravid belly shuddered, pulsed, shuddered, then collapsed very quickly. She felt something leaving, pushed from the womb into open air. Wet and stirring, the baby was held aloft. It began to cry at once.

The hands and mouths came away. Dozens of eyes looked up at the newborn.

The eyes were wide, glittering.

Staring up as if in reverence.

«« — »»

Ann churned awake. The bedroom’s dark felt like a crushing weight, a blanket of hot, wet cement. She lurched up.

The clock read 4:12 a.m.

The nightmare, she thought. Again.

Martin snored faintly beside her. He’d come home late, enthusing about his excursion to Lockwood’s only bar. “What a great bunch of guys,” he’d said. “You’ll never meet people like that in the city. Real people, you know? They have their lives and they live them in their own honest way.”

He rambled on happily, not drunk, just feeling good. It pleased Ann to see him so happy. It was hard for him here, she knew, in a place so different from the world he was used to, especially with the shadow of her mother’s cynicism constantly over his head. “It’s strange,” he’d gone on. “I’ve been here a few times in the past, but for some reason it’s different now. I wouldn’t even mind living here, to be honest. I feel at peace here.”

He’d made love to her when they’d gone to bed. She’d straddled him, touching herself between their hips. She’d wanted so badly to come with him, but as usual it hadn’t happened. She’d had to pretend again. Thank God he didn’t know.

The nightmare haunted her now. Its crisp images and vivid heat seemed to linger in the dark. When she got up, her sex tingled—the giveaway that she’d come in her sleep. How could she know so little about herself? She felt desperate without Dr. Harold. The dream’s scenario always roved like a camera lens, escalating to perversion. Why? What had Melanie’s birth proposed to Ann’s subconscious? Rampant lesbianism. Orgies beneath the birth table. Occult undertones, and that cryptic warped double circle.